Month: April 2024

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Core Truths To Guide Us

We live in nonsensical times.  Good is bad, bad is good and much ugliness attempts to blot out the beauty.  Through the duplicitous tactics of the power hungry our basic sense of right and wrong has been upended resulting in chaos, division, and moral decline.  We can restore cultural sanity with the application of core truths and common sense as outlined in the examples below. 

Abortion

To drive votes, politicians have created a holy war over abortion.  Let’s simplify. How can it be morally responsible to have an abortion for convenience when an unborn baby can feel pain.  We jail people for torturing dogs, why would we torture our offspring.  Yet we see people demand the right to abortion for any reason up to the moment of birth. 

Religious beliefs regarding the beginning of life vary greatly.  Each faction fervently believes they are right.  Politicians have converted the righteous into loyal combatants in their service.  

A simple solution lies in the middle.  In the early stages of pregnancy, agree to let judgement occur at the pearly gates.  Only allow abortion for convenience up to the point a baby can feel pain.  Reasonable exceptions should be allowed for the life of the mother, incest, and rape.  Let’s shut down the political games. 

Immigration

The subject of immigration has also been politicized.  Until recent years, both parties believed a secure, well managed border was essential.  Whether the goal was accomplished is another matter, but a secure border was viewed as a good thing by most.  Not anymore.  For their own ulterior motives, the progressive controlled Democratic leadership and some Republicans insist we overlook logic, national security, fiscal responsibility, quality of life, and support thousands of daily border crossings, legal or illegal.  By doing so they also effectively condone human trafficking and flooding our country with fentanyl. 

Core truths can guide us.  It is wrong to let people into our home we know nothing about. We don’t know their intentions, whether law abiding or criminal, contributors or parasites, willing to assimilate or not, or plan to blow things up while chanting Allahu Akbar.  

Compassion for those who suffer in other countries is worthy, but we must be realistic and agree it is wrong to prioritize those who seek US residency over Americans.  The financial and societal burden has become extreme.  It is unwise to spend $150.7 billion tax dollars annually to facilitate illegal immigration when many states are in a deficit position, our national deficit was $1.7 trillion in FY2023 and national debt is $34.5 trillion.  Being rational is not racist. 

Would any parent bring a great number of unvetted people into their home if they don’t have the room, budget or ability to care for them without hurting their own children?  Not likely.  Why then would we do this on the national level. 

It is wrong to continue policies that encourage the humanitarian crisis at our southern border.  Human trafficking has become a billion dollar business with disastrous results for some including torture, rape and death. 

It is wrong that over 100,000 Americans die annually from fentanyl that is trafficked over our porous southern border.  

There is a simple solution.  Close the border to all asylum seekers until comprehensive immigration legislation is passed that serves the needs of the Country rather than the politicians.  If it takes Congress years to do it, so be it.  Any bill should have the blessing of border states, streamline legal immigration, be based on meritocracy, the individual’s ability to contribute and assimilate in our society with an appropriate number of immigrants allowed for humanitarian reasons.  A maximum number of immigrants should be established annually based on our ability to fund related programs and absorb additional residents. Incentives to break the law should be removed and penalties for doing so severe and immediate.  Build the wall and implement other strategies to further deter illegal crossings.  Ensure Mexico supports our efforts.  Kneecap the cartels. 

Voting Law

Attempts to manipulate voting law for political gain are a true threat to democracy. The potential for some politicians and voters to cheat is a core truth we cannot ignore. Until recent years both political parties understood this and agreed boundaries must be in place to deter cheating.  Now those boundaries have been relaxed under the guise of making it easier to vote.  Unfortunately, these same changes have also made it easier to cheat.  The disastrous result has been a loss of confidence in our elections.    

Why can’t we make it easier to vote and harder to cheat? 

Let’s go back to basics.  Encourage in person voting on election day and for a short early voting period with voter ID and proof of citizenship.  In lieu of mass mailing of ballots, allow any voter to request an absentee ballot for any reason with voter ID and proof of citizenship.  Aid voters who may have difficulty obtaining ID. 

Use paper ballots or voting mechanisms that are 100% tamper proof.  Absentee ballots should be mailed or dropped at a monitored polling location with verification of receipt.  Prohibit ballot harvesting and partisan donations and/or staffing of election offices. Absentee ballots must arrive by election day or earlier stipulated date so they can be counted by election day.  Late ballots or those with errors do not count.  Public service messages should underscore that voters have a responsibility to follow election rules.  If they don’t, their vote won’t count.  Penalties for cheating should be swift and severe. 

Sex Change

The push to teach children they can change their sex with a declaration, drugs and/or surgery does not stand up when core truths are applied: 

  • Humans are binary mammals. 
  • A minuscule number of children have a psychological condition in which they are unable to accept their sex.  Most of these kids accept their bodies after puberty and many are gay.  We do not need to redefine what it means to be male and female to care for these individuals. 
  • It is difficult to imagine a scenario where it is preferable to knowingly commit a child with gender dysphoria to a lifetime of health destroying drugs and surgery rather than employ extensive psychotherapy especially since no one can predict which 80% of kids will come to accept their bodies.  
  • If kids are taught they can change their sex, when other psychological stresses occur, they may choose to believe they are were “born in the wrong body” rather then grapple with the idea they are gay, autistic, have been sexually abused, influenced by their friends, etc. Social contagion is real. The current standard of care puts children with rapid onset gender dysphoria, most of whom have other psychological issues, on a path to medicalization instead of comprehensive psychotherapy. How can this possibly be good?
  • Minors and potentially young adults prior to maturation of the brain do not have the capacity to comprehend the long-term serious health ramifications of sex change drugs and surgery.  Detransitioners underscore this simple truth. How can it be good to peddle drugs to young people? 

There is a way forward.  Parents should unite and require local governments and schools teach kids basic biology and expose “gender ideology” as a well-financed notion that is inconsistent with human biology.  The standard of care for minors with gender dysphoria should be based on psychotherapy not drugs and surgery. As is done with other harmful drugs, clearly outline the dangers and irreversible nature of sex change drugs.  Warn kids to avoid the manipulation of political and social media influencers who have essentially become drug pushers for Big Pharma.  Teach them it’s not cool to destroy their health. Bans will not be as effective as education since kids suffering from social contagion will just wait until they are 18 to start sex change drugs.  Encourage compassion for and acceptance of those who struggle with gender dysphoria.  

Summary

The above is intended to show how general policy frameworks can be simply crafted when we ignore political machinations and focus on core truths.  We can apply this same strategy to other issues undermining our culture.

Unfortunately we are being smothered from every side by corrupt politicians and their operatives.  To achieve their own dreams of power and domination they lie and manipulate the citizens to believe bad is good and good is bad to gain support for their nefarious actions. We know better. Right and wrong are universal. 

While it appears we are trapped, we can act.  Let’s neutralize those who seek to confuse us by rediscovering our innate sense of right and wrong and demand policy that reflects these core truths.  Perhaps when we do, we will select better representatives. 

DETAILS

As always I include a details section to support positions above and provide additional information. 

  • A good source of information on the ramifications of illegal immigration can be found at FAIR, Federation for American Immigration Reform.
  • Please considering reading, “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers, 2023 Cost Study.” 
  • Should anyone wish to refresh their knowledge on the national deficit, this article may be a good starting point.  “A budget deficit occurs when money going out (spending) exceeds money coming in (revenue) during a defined period. In FY 2023, the federal government spent $6.13 trillion and collected $4.44 trillion in revenue, resulting in a deficit. The amount by which spending exceeds revenue, $1.70 trillion in 2023, is referred to as deficit spending.”
  • A refresher on the national debt can be found in this article. 
  • Human trafficking is a massive problem exasperated by a porous border essentially controlled by the cartels.  Here is a general overview. 
  • I encourage folks to read “Rigged” by Mollie Hemingway for an overview of voting law changes that occurred in 2020.  Historical context is also included.
  • Please consider reading Michael Shellenberger’s recently released  “WPATH Files”. An excerpt: “But now, newly released internal files from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) prove that the practice of transgender medicine is neither scientific nor medical. American Medical Association, The Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and thousands of doctors worldwide rely on WPATH. It is considered the leading global authority on “gender medicine. And yet WPATH’s internal files, which include written discussions and a video, reveal that its members know they are creating victims and not getting “informed consent”.”
  • As the reader may have noted, I no longer use the term transgender.  I firmly support adults over 25 with gender dysphoria who gain psychological relief by assuming the characteristics of the opposite sex. Sadly for them they cannot change their innate biology and at their core will still be their natal sex. Therefore actual transgender individuals do not exist and I will no longer use language such as this and “gender assigned at birth” designed to manipulate my beliefs. After much research on the subject, summarized in previous articles outlined below, my thoughts have simplified.  I do not believe in gender ideology. It is abhorrent to teach children they can change their sex and then peddle them drugs and surgery to do so.  The Transgender Campaign series:

Part 1 “Through the Looking Glass”

Part 2 “Snowballs”

Part 3 “The Marketeers

Part 4 “Comment on Biden Administration’s Proposed Changes to Title IX

Part 5 “Beliefs, Biases and Bad Ideas”

Part 6 “A Matter for Debate not Decree”

Part 7 “Exposing the Underbelly of Gender Ideology”

For those who prefer to read in Substack, feel free to follow My Two Cents. Thanks, Sue

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Exposing the Underbelly of Gender Ideology

The Transgender Campaign Part 7

There has been a chorus of articles recently suggesting that “gender affirming care” for minors as recommended by the federal government and major medical institutions will soon be written off as one of the greatest medical malpractice events in human history.  This standard of care recommends minors who believe they have been “born in the wrong body” receive immediate social affirmation to the opposite sex, puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and surgery.  However, even though the public has begun to recognize the barbarity of “gender affirming care”, this will not be enough to stop this movement.  We must eliminate the source of the massive increase in kids who wish to change their sex. 

Gender ideology and those who push it are the culprits.  Until they are neutralized, those children who do not fall into traditional stereotypes such as our feminine sons and tomboy daughters plus those with mental illness will remain at risk. The drumbeat to find one’s “authentic self” via health destroying drugs and surgery will continue.  Vulnerable kids who have been spoon-fed this ideology both in school and social media will simply wait until they are 18 to harm their bodies. 

The Difference Between Gender Ideology and Gender Dsyphoria

To critically evaluate gender ideology, we must first decouple the ideology from gender dysphoria lest our compassion for those who suffer from this condition obstructs our view.  The two have been inexorably linked, purposely it appears, so that anyone who questions the ideology, or the money-making scheme behind it, is labeled a “transphobe” who wants to block treatments for those who have gender dysphoria.  Aside from being false, this approach has allowed a corrosive ideology to flourish that manipulates young people to believe that biologic reality can be overridden by desire. 

Gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder as it was called before the ideology influenced the medical institutions, is a condition in which a child experiences a marked incongruence with their sex and exhibits an intense persistent identification with the opposite sex. The standard of care used to be “watchful waiting” and psychotherapy not immediate affirmation, drugs, and surgery.  There is an excellent reason for this approach. After puberty most of these kids accept their sex and many are gay. While not the subject of this article, note that a very small percentage of adults, mostly male, also experience this condition. 

On the other hand, gender ideology is a belief structure.  It posits that sex and gender are distinct and may or may not match.  For example, a person can be born a boy but feel like a girl.  Those feelings are described as one’s “gender identity”. This individual may choose drugs and surgery to make their bodies more closely resemble their “gender identity”.  With or without medicalization the ideology dictates that a person’s “gender identity” defines their true sex and they should participate in society as such. “Gender identities” and therefore sex is fluid and can change at will.  Defying gametes and chromosomes, gender ideology also teaches that humans are not binary mammals.  Instead, there are multiple sexes any of which a person can choose and implement via desire, drugs and/or surgery. 

It’s Not About Compassion…

It is critical to grasp that gender ideologues declared that gender dysphoria was no longer a rare psychiatric disorder that required treatment but instead a normal human experience. Any human could and should embark on a “gender journey” to find their “authentic” self.  In other words, gender ideology used the plight of children with gender dysphoria to saturate our culture with a novel theory of human biology and sexuality. 

The launch of gender ideology into society would have been a miserable failure without attaching itself like a malignant tumor to gender dysphoria.  This was necessary to both garner compassion from the public and conceal the true nature of the ideology.  Otherwise folks would have likely recognized that “gender identities” were actually our personalities and preferences, human biology is reality and that the strict stereotypes pushed by the ideology were regressive. 

Gender ideology was the impetus for the “gender affirming care” model that encourages self-affirmation and on-demand drugs and surgery regardless of the presence of other mental health conditions.  Prescribing testosterone upon request to a young woman who decided last month she is male is not compassion. 

Marketing Gender Ideology

After gender ideology was declared a fact of life by the major medical institutions, the marketing began in earnest.  In the name of inclusion, language was changed to include phrases such as “gender assigned at birth”.  Youngsters were taught about “gender journeys” at school and that they could be a boy, a girl, both or neither. Preferred pronouns were added to one’s signature.  To the delight of Big Pharma, gender clinics mushroomed over the country pushing sex change drugs without psychological treatment.  The surgeons willing to cut breasts off and castrate healthy minors and young adults jumped on the bandwagon. Social media influencers also raked in the dollars.  Holidays were established.  The President declared those on gender journeys “brave”. Tampons were installed in boys’ bathrooms.

The marketing worked.  Many of our youth and their parents became true believers.

The General Public’s Reaction 

Sadly, as gender ideology and its proponents caught society in their web, the public remained largely ignorant of its teachings, its presence in many schools and social media, and the exponential growth of the on-demand sex change industry.  Society’s blind eye allowed a growing number of vulnerable minors and young adults influenced by the movement to be drugged and mutilated.  Media’s complicity is evident in its praise of “gender affirming care” coupled with silence on the considerable physical and psychological health consequences. Public figures who questioned “gender affirming care” or how the ideology impacted our culture were viciously labeled, canceled, and/or silenced. 

The WPATH Files Expose the Underbelly

Anyone who doubts the impact of gender ideology on the treatment protocols, should read the WPATH Files published by Environmental Progress.  It is a report that includes a compilation of leaked internal correspondence and videos from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health.  WPATH establishes the standard of care for gender dysphoria and our major medical institutions, federal government, many state governments and associated government schools have followed their lead on “gender affirming care”: immediate affirmation, drugs, and surgery in lieu of psychotherapy and “watchful waiting”. 

To say that the WPATH Files are intensely disturbing is a gross understatement.  It is abundantly clear that the recommended standards of care that lead a girl with rapid onset gender dysphoria to self-harm and testosterone are based purely on the unproven everchanging landscape of gender theory without regard to evidence based science, ethics, or the long-term physical or psychological health of the patient.  They are making it up as they go along. 

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It is difficult to choose the most troubling excerpt from the WPATH files. A top contender, however, is that WPATH members understand that it is impossible to gain informed consent from their patients.  Yet they still proceed with treatments that, among other things, could sterilize them, block their ability to ever orgasm, impact sexual function, and result in a lifetime of drugs and surgery with serious physical and mental health side effects.  “Metzger reminded those assembled that gender doctors are “often explaining these sorts of things to people who haven’t even had biology in high school yet,” adding that even adult patients often have very little medical understanding of the effects of these interventions.”

It is incomprehensible.  But even more so is that any medical institution listened to these misguided ideologues whose judgement seems horribly twisted by their own psychological issues.  This is a testament to the power of marketing.  With the revelations and analysis included in the WPATH Files, some organizations will wake up and agree that WPATH members and associates are no different than the quacks who performed lobotomies and removed women’s ovaries to combat mental illness.  But others appear to be standing firm in support of gender ideology and its spawn, “gender affirming care”. 

Solutions

Even though folks are beginning to understand the threat, the sex change industry will not collapse until its market is eliminated.  The market will only dry up when gender ideology, which teaches kids to believe they might be “born in the wrong body”, is exposed and discarded as junk theory.  

To aid this effort, a comprehensive nationwide marketing campaign should be initiated to educate parents and children on the dangers of sex change drugs and surgeries.  Gender theory should be removed from schools and parents given tools to inoculate their children from sex change predators on social media. We should vote out politicians who support the drugging and mutilation of minors in the name of gender ideology and “Budlight” corporations who do the same. Equally important, for the safety, health, and healing of those with gender dysphoria, the condition should once again be recognized as a psychiatric disorder and treated as such. 

It is time to act.  It is our duty to protect both those with gender dysphoria and those who have fallen victim to the mass marketing of gender ideology and its barbaric, unethical treatments.  Let’s do what needs to be done.    

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DETAILS

As always, I include a details section to support positions above and provide avenues for additional research. 

·       The WPATH Files is essential reading for those who want to educate themselves and help protect minors and young adults from self-harm.  It was released by Michael Shellenberger’s Environmental Progress and authored by Mia Hughes.  I would recommend reading the raw files and watching the videos first and then read the report which provides a helpful history, commentary of the files and compares “gender affirming care” to other horrific medical procedures such as lobotomies and ovariotomies.  Note I have included several excerpts of the raw files in this article.

·       For those who do not have time to read but can listen, I recommend this Jordan Peterson podcast in which he discusses the WPATH files with Michael Shellenberger. 

·       Not long after the WPATH Files came out, England’s National Health Service banned the use of puberty blockers.  SEGM, The Society for Evidenced Based Gender Medicine discusses the action in this article.  The SEGM website is a wealth of information for those who would like to understand this subject in more depth.  “Our aim is to promote safe, compassionate, ethical and evidence-based healthcare for children, adolescents, and young adults with gender dysphoria.”

·       Colin Wright’s Reality’s Last Stand is an excellent publication for those who wish to examine the scientific aspects of gender ideology’s claims regarding sex and biology.  Here is a sample that discusses the sex binary.

·       A google search of “gender dysphoria” will reveal one source after another laden with the language of gender ideology.  This Psychology Today article is an example.  It establishes that there are more than two genders and that kids are assigned a “gender at birth”. 

·       Consider reading the definition of gender identity disorder/gender dysphoria in DSM 4 and DSM 5.  It is a major shift based on the influence of gender ideologues.

·       As the American Psychological Association states:  “The presence of gender variance is not the pathology but dysphoria is from the distress caused by the body and mind not aligning and/or societal marginalization of gender-variant people.”  This step to declare that gender dysphoria was no longer a psychological condition normalized the theory that gender identity was distinct from sex, provided a pathway for insurance to cover medicalization, and cast society at large as the oppressor. 

·       What is missing from the article above is a discussion of why gender ideology was plucked out of academia and thrust on society by the likes of Obama, Big Pharma, the Pritzkers and other big money bags.  Power and money are usually the goals.  I am not 100% clear on the twisted motives of this strategy but am perfectly clear that they have sacrificed children to achieve them. 

·       After much research on gender ideology and its impact on society, summarized in previous articles below, my thoughts have crystallized.  I do not believe in gender ideology.  I believe it is abhorrent to teach children they can change their sex and then encourage them to do so. 

The Transgender Campaign series:

Part 1 “Through the Looking Glass”

Part 2 “Snowballs”

Part 3 “The Marketeers”

Part 4 “Comment on Biden Administration’s Proposed Changes to Title IX”

Part 5 “Beliefs, Biases and Bad Ideas”

Part 6 “A Matter for Debate not Decree”

Part 7 “Exposing the Underbelly of Gender Ideology”

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